Chapter 5: Summary and Recommendations
5.3 Recommendations
Educational research, or research based on teachers’ implementation of the curriculum, should contribute to teachers’ understanding of their work (teaching). Thus, teachers should be trained to understand the ten curricular spider’s web concepts in order to understand the curriculum, which may see teachers implement the curriculum without any challenges. Furthermore, research findings could be used to enlighten teachers. Research can also help teachers with professional development, and also to the school leadership/management to support the teachers with the necessary requirements for curriculum implementation. Such research could also help teachers to
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understand how to teach learners effectively regardless of socio-economic backgrounds as this is considered to be a key hindrance to successful teaching and learning in South Africa.
The current approach to school-based physical education could be improved through the reading (research) by the teachers. CAPS emphasise the working together of different stakeholders (e.g.
parents, curriculum developers, teachers and learners) to contribute to quality teaching and learning. At present, as is evidenced from the teacher’s interviews, physical education programmes are not successfully implemented due to the teachers’ lack of content knowledge.
In seeking to close the enactment gap and improve the implementation of the physical education programme, teachers and the DoE should look at strategies that will ensure that a comprehensive physical education programme is successfully implemented in every single primary school, especially in rural schools. Findings from the teachers’ experiences have been generated through the curricular spider’s web themes. As such recommendations will be done according to the findings from the spider web themes.
For teachers to successfully implement or teach physical education they must have a rationale for teaching, which can be taken from the CAPS document or planned by the teachers (objectives) themselves. The findings reveal that teachers lack the vision for teaching physical education. As indicated in Berkvens et al. (2014) curricular spiders’ web, the rationale is the core of curriculum implementation. This suggests that teaching cannot successfully take place without the rationale. Thus, teachers should be encouraged to study further (by means of research or enroll for Advanced Certificates in Education ACE) on their subject and the curriculum policy documents.
When teachers educate without first setting goals for their lessons the result is an absence of aims and objectives of teaching. Thus, teaching and learning become meaningless if it is conducted without aims and objectives. Teachers need to understand their curriculum and its goals so that they are able to draw their objectives directly from the curriculum. Therefore, it is recommended that the specialists from the DBE who conduct the workshops for clusters in
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different circuits should include in their sessions these issues (informing teachers about the goals and how to set the objectives derived from the CAPS aims). Informing teachers on how to set goals in their teaching may be one reason that teachers are encouraged to study. It can also develop teachers not to rely on society for information. Educational specialist concerns in their workshops are that teachers should teach and mark the workbooks.
The teachers indicated that they lack the content knowledge of physical education and for that reason; almost all the participants in this study have indicated that there is need for physical education specialist (society) who will help educate teachers on how to implement physical education. According to CAPS teachers are encouraged to study their subjects because society (physical education specialist) cannot be a permanent solution to their teaching challenges. In- service training, research, and short-term courses can also help teachers develop knowledge for physical education content. Studying requires much energy especially for the foundation phase teachers because some of them are near their retiring ages as such they are tempted to fall back into their old practices (Thijs & Van den Akker, 2009). If there is a need to improve the quality of teaching, teachers will have to study further to ensure they gain the content knowledge or understand the curriculum.
One can argue that the one day, or one week, in-service training offered to teachers is not enough to equip teachers with the curriculum knowledge or content knowledge required to implement a full year’s curriculum. It is therefore recommended that the in-service training for teachers take a long time that can be estimated to about a year or so. The curriculum improvement in schools is similarly influenced by the ambit to which teachers are equipped to implement the innovation (Thijs & Van den Akker, 2009). Teachers need to be trained in order for them to gain content and theory knowledge of physical education. Without the theory, teachers are failing to prepare learners for future participation in physical activities.
Mudekunye and Sithole (2012), indicated that physical education in schools is scheduled for the sake of teachers and there is little or no support from school administrators. Teachers have disagreeing views about the location and time for teaching physical education. Learners, in order
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to enjoy physical education, need ample time and a safe environment to play or do physical education. The findings from the teachers in this study indicate that the environment in their school is not favorable for physical education. Thus, there is a need for the curriculum developers to visit the schools and check for the playgrounds where physical education is taking place in schools. The visit should be done in schools in the rural areas so that they will recommend the right materials that that will promote a safe learning environment.
Some teachers are concerned that not enough time is allocated to physical education while others say time is enough. It is recommended that teachers use the little time they are allocated currently only to get acquainted with the different strategies for teaching physical education.
Pupils should be persuaded to participate in extracurricular activities at home, which will ensure that learners have ample time to participate in physical education. Moreover, learners will utalise the given time in schools to inspire their teachers to teach physical education. Teachers are discouraged by the learners. Learners take a long time to learn an activity and time end up not being enough to cover the activity of the day.
The findings for this study indicate that teachers are employing the incorrect role in teaching physical education. The role of the physical education teacher should be a facilitator. Khoza (2013b) cautions that physical education teachers should be facilitators so that they are able to create objectives. Teachers need to understand and be aware of diverse roles in teaching so that they will not only use teaching as a role to teach. Teaching without strategies may not produce the anticipated results because teachers may apply the incorrect method of teaching especially in teaching the practical subject like physical education. Currently, teachers are using the same teaching strategy to teach theory in a subject and practical. However, a theory and practical requires a different approach when teaching. The findings indicate that teachers are using their role of instructors when teaching physical education and this role is not relevant for teaching physical education. The correct role of the teacher is to ensure the correct methods of teaching and that learning becomes interesting to learners. Understanding the role of the teacher through studying (from the workshops or courses) or research may ensure quality teaching. It is thus recommended that teachers understand their roles in teaching physical education, so that will ensure they select the correct activities that will be interesting to their learners.
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Moreover, there are no physical education assessments, thus, to the learners physical education sessions are similar to jaunts (Wanyama & Quay, 2014). Indeed, teachers do not assess physical education correctly and the findings indicate that teachers only use the assessment of learning strategy to assess physical education. It is therefore recommended that teachers be informed about different types of assessment and the relevant assessment strategy for physical education.
It is apparent that the one thing that makes the teachers fail in their work is their lack of desire to study further. Some teachers are aware that they should have a notebook (check list and rubrics according to CAPS) to record learners marks. Yet, teachers could not clearly explicate the checklists they should use (currently the findings indicate that teachers no longer carry checklists). The subject specialists, the DBE officials, and school management should regularly visit schools or teachers to check whether they are doing the right thing so that they can devise a way forward to ensure the correct method of assessment are employed.
Teachers protest the lack of resources and accessibility when teaching physical education. Even if resources are available and are of good quality, there is regularly no guarantee that resources offered are used as anticipated (Berkvens et al., 2014). It is recommended that there be a group of officials who will investigate whether teachers are knowledgeable about how to use the necessary resources. Resources are always available, the only thing missing is the knowledge of how to use the resources. Once again, to support this Berkvens et al. (2014, p. 20), contend that there are a number of “unused materials that can be found in all schools, hidden away in cupboards or in the principal’s office”. Moreover, teacher can use cheap or recyclable materials as resources to teach physical education. Teachers must be advised to use the available resources in schools so it will be convincing to the heads of schools that teachers really need resources to teach physical education.
This suggests that there is a lot that needs to be done, especially by the school administrators or the curriculum designers, in terms of managing the implementation of physical education. If physical education is considered a subject with a huge impact on assisting learners to develop, then why is it not given much priority? This calls for the curriculum developers to manage the implementation of physical education. Otherwise as a country we will still encounter citizens
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who will grow with a lot of sicknesses like: obesity, cardiovascular and many other sicknesses that can be addressed by partaking in physical education. Goudas et al. (2006), opine that when abilities are imparted in such a way that a student knows the skills are exchangeable and understand how to interchange them, the result can remain extremely influential.